UKMTO logs an engine-room fire on the tanker LIPSI after a Hormuz strike

A tanker was hit by an unknown projectile in the Strait of Hormuz at 16:37 on 5 October, and the crew was still fighting an engine-room fire when the master reported the strike to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations. UKMTO recorded no casualties and no environmental damage at the time of the report. Maritime security sources later named the ship as the Liberia-flagged LIPSI, managed by Dynacom Tankers of Greece.

UKMTO put out four warnings and one advisory that day. Three of the warnings were late reports of strikes on 3 and 4 October. On 4 October an LPG tanker was hit at 17:16, and a crude tanker at 19:07. The 3 October report, time still unconfirmed, described a crude tanker struck above the waterline. Those late filings sat alongside the 5 October engine-room fire and alongside the 4 October attack on the product tanker Chrystal Sky, which reported explosions close by at about 16:50.

A separate advisory on 5 October said a master had been hailed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps about 11 nautical miles north of Khasab, Oman. The hail ordered the ship to turn back or be fired on. The ship turned. No strike and no injury were reported in that incident.

Security firms counting the first week of October have logged at least seven tanker attacks, including the LIPSI and the Kazimah III. No crew deaths were reported in that set. Responsibility for the LIPSI projectile has not been established. UKMTO did not name the weapon or the launcher.

The strait is the same waterway Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco described this week when he said commercial oil stocks had fallen below 6 billion barrels after nearly 3 billion barrels of gross supply were lost and more than 1 billion were drawn from inventory. A fire in one engine room does not move that stock figure. It does show that ships are still being hit on the route those stocks depend on.

Reuters data cited by shipping desks showed Middle Eastern crude exports above pre-war levels on several days in late September. The attacks and the export recovery are both in the record. A master can report a fire at 16:37 and a loading terminal can still clear a cargo the same week. The UKMTO file is the part that names the ship, the hour and the damage. The export file is the part that says the route has not closed.

The IRGC hail north of Khasab is a different kind of event from the projectile. One is an order to reverse course, complied with. The other is a hit that started a fire the crew had not yet put out when they called. Putting them in one day's warnings is UKMTO's editorial choice. They are not the same act.

What can be said without a claim of authorship is the list. LIPSI, Liberia flag, Dynacom management, engine-room fire, no casualties in the first report. Three earlier strikes filed late. A turn-back order 11 nautical miles north of Khasab. Seven tanker attacks in the first week of October, none of them fatal in the counts published so far. The origin of the projectile remains unstated by the only agency that took the master's call.

The flag and the manager are the two identifiers a reader can use while the projectile's origin stays blank. Liberia is a registry, not a nationality of the crew. Dynacom is the company that takes the call when a master reports a fire. Neither fact assigns the attack. Both facts stop the incident being filed as an anonymous tanker.

Four warnings in one UKMTO cycle, three of them late, also say something about the reporting lag. A strike on 3 October that reaches the desk on 5 October is still an attack. It is not a new attack. Counting the week requires the separation UKMTO itself made: one fresh engine-room fire, three older impacts, one hail that ended in a U-turn. Adding them into a single escalation loses the hour.

Kazimah III sits in the same weekly count as LIPSI. The public notes do not give Kazimah III a time or a damage report comparable to the engine-room fire. Until they do, LIPSI is the ship with a name, a manager, an hour and a compartment. The rest of the week is a tally.